[Voices of Cabrini raw #8]

Footage for the documentary "Voices of Cabrini." Shot between 1995-1999, it documented the Cabrini Green redevelopment project proposed and carried out by the City of Chicago. This tape features interviews with Sirwanta Terry, Twanna Murdock, and Tammy Smith in 1150 N. Sedgwick. Sirwanta Terry is the building president for 1150/1160 N. Sedgwick and Twanna Murdock is the treasurer.

0:02Copy video clip URL Open to a young boy clearing away some paper masks.

0:48Copy video clip URL Anthony shows the crew his bedroom. Anthony’s older brother reads aloud to him “The Gingerbread Man.”

6:22Copy video clip URL Cameraman Antonio Ferrera, leaves the boys’ bedroom and walks down the hallway. In Sirwanta’s bedroom a little girl gets dressed with Tammy Smith’s help.

6:51Copy video clip URL [REDACTED]

11:57Copy video clip URL Smith finishes dressing her daughter.

13:29Copy video clip URL They leave the bedroom and head down the hallway. They eat donuts in the kitchen. Another woman, Twanna Murdock, sits in the kitchen with the boys.

14:51Copy video clip URL Cut to the hallway. [REDACTED]

16:33Copy video clip URL Camera crew moves back into the kitchen. Sirwanta and two boys sit at the table.

18:55Copy video clip URL Cut to the hallway. The eldest boy is restless. Tammy continues to wash her daughter in the tub.

20:53Copy video clip URL Interior of the boys’ room.

21:08Copy video clip URL Twanna at the table. She chats about the Chicago Bulls basketball team.

23:04Copy video clip URL Eldest boy enters the apartment from outside. At the kitchen table one of the daughters shows off her sweater. Sasha finishes her bath. The youngest son sucks his thumb in the hallway.

25:40Copy video clip URL Cut back to the kitchen table. Static.

26:09Copy video clip URL Cut to the eldest daughter drawing on cardboard.

26:57Copy video clip URL Cut Sirwanta speaking into a telephone. Cut back to the interior hallway of the apartment. In the master bedroom Sirwanta, Twanna, and Tammy are relaxing on the bed. Once roused, they chat about their morning routines.

30:00Copy video clip URL Ronit Bezalel begins an interview. Twanna tells how long they’ve lived in Cabrini-Green. They go over how many family members live in the community and how much the community has changed over time.

32:49Copy video clip URL Tammy: “It’s boring. It used to be fun…as far as everybody hanging out and partying together…it don’t look like it used to look.” They talk about fear of gangs: “I think they fear gangs the most…the gangs that are here, people are familiar with them, because they’ve been here for a long time…” They all live in this building.

36:25Copy video clip URL Sirwanta: “It didn’t really sink into our heads until they started knocking the other buildings down…” They talk about the effect of Dontrell Davis’s death.

37:32Copy video clip URL Twanna: “When I was in 1159 I was in the second floor, and when they moved me over here they put me in the sixteenth floor…I had four children then…it was a big problem.”

38:09Copy video clip URL Sirwanta describes the town-hall meetings that introduced the Hope 6 Plan to the public. They discuss the aspects of the Hope 6 Plan.

40:21Copy video clip URL Tammy: “You read about stuff in the newspaper. You don’t really get letters.”

42:29Copy video clip URL In a discussion of 90-day notices and Section 8 housing, Sirwanta says: “They try to manipulate and confuse people who don’t know…” At the moment there are 100 families between the two buildings.

44:13Copy video clip URL Twanna: “I’ve been here all my life, and I hear the changes people are going through who have moved…and I don’t think it would be in my best interest to move…” Director Ronit Bezalel asks her to elaborate where she would go if she were thrown out.

45:19Copy video clip URL Bezalel asks them to explain Section 8 housing: “The certificate will pay the majority of the rent.” Bezalel asks them how the tension will resolve itself, given that CHA wants them out of Cabrini-Green, but they’re unwilling to leave.

48:16Copy video clip URL Sirwanta: “It might lead to violence if that’s what we got to do. We’re not going to let them just push us out this building. They’re gonna have to come with something.”

48:53Copy video clip URL Twanna describes her three options for housing: Scatter sites, Section 8, and moving to any other CHA development. Sirwanta describes the venues available for Cabrini organizing.

50:46Copy video clip URL Twanna: “I believe everybody… feels the same way: we’re not going anywhere. We’re not going to allow them to displace–these are people who’ve been here longer than we have.”

51:27Copy video clip URL Bezalel asks them about ownership issues. Sirwanta: “I believe it is the same situation…but there’s too many of us for y’all to do us like that…we’re not going to allow them to do that.” She talks about the legal action they’ve taken to stop CHA from moving them out of Cabrini.

53:04Copy video clip URL Twanna describes a meeting between residents, alderman, LAC representatives, and Joseph Shuldiner.

55:38Copy video clip URL Twanna talks about the original plan to build replacement housing in tandem with demolition, and how now everything is in limbo, because residents are refusing to leave without their promised homes. She remarks that housing regulations will be used as a way to forcibly evict residents.

59:43Copy video clip URL Clarissa interrupts the interview and combs Bezalel’s hair.

1:01:47Copy video clip URL Bezalel asks them about the family environment in Cabrini. Twanna: “It’s been like a family, one big happy family…our kids go through the different and go to different apartments and it’s still like they’re home…they get checked by different people…we want to be together.”

1:03:21Copy video clip URL Bezalel asks them about what CHA has done in the past to force distrust on them. Sirwanta: “They haven’t done nothing!..they don’t even have a plan..”

1:04:09Copy video clip URL End of tape.